*
Astrid's jaw worked. "I wasn't going to leave him."
I shifted back long enough to speak clearly. Cold bit immediately through skin and damp clothes. "Both of you will finish the night on the return sleds. Then you'll run the same course tomorrow at dawn with Johan until he says you're thinking again.".
Astrid's head snapped up. For a heartbeat something old and stubborn flashed in her eyes—the look of a girl who still half-expected Elena's daughter to soften an order into a suggestion. Then it passed. She nodded once, sharp.
"Understood."
The injured boy mumbled the same. Sigrid already had him on the sled. The hunt closed around the gap and kept moving.
